Sabah has created some excellent benchmarks: MPC

Kota Kinabalu: Malaysia is now ranked 19th in the world in terms of competitiveness, from last year's 22nd position.

Malaysia Productivity Corporation (MPC) Director-General, Datuk Nik Zainiah Nik Abdul Rahman, said the ranking is based on four factors, namely, the country's economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure in 65 nations, including Malaysia.

She said Malaysia is now ranked eighth in terms of economic performance, the 19th in terms of government efficiency, 14th in terms of business efficiency and 25th in terms of infrastructure.

"So all in all, we (Malaysia) are now the 19th most competitive nation of the world," she said at a seminar on "Updates on Malaysia's Competitiveness 2008", organised by MPC, at Hotel Le Meridien, here, Monday.

On the competitiveness of Sabah, Nik Zainiah said based on the ranking done by MPC in 2006, Sabah has created some excellent benchmarks in terms of competitiveness compared to some countries in the world.

For example, she said, Sabah is ranked first in terms of energy intensity, the third in terms of Internet utilisation, the fourth in terms of government subsidy versus private and public companies in terms of percentage in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Sabah is also ranked fifth in terms of export of goods, behind Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia as a whole and Belgium.